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Some further contextual notes. A few people (notably, the people who wrote the intro to the Landmark Hellenica) have noted that his description of the coup in Athens overthrowing the Spartan installed regime is written more or less from the perspective of a cavalryman in the Oligarchic faction. Their theory, then, is that this was Xenophon's own perspective. Socrates and his students (Alcibiades, Xenophon) seem to have had, or were at least perceived to have, anti-democratic leanings which, at least in Socrates' case, proved fatal. People thus theorize that at least part of why Xenophon took off was because Athens was going through a rough patch and he'd pick the wrong side to be on. Of course, after the events of Anabasis the Ten Thousand are going to end up circling back to Greece and fighting under the Spartans. This leads to Xenophon's exile from Athens proper for at least a while. I find this interesting because from the start the Spartans have a fair amount of sway in the Ten Thousand and afterwards they get scooped up by Derkylidas, yet another Spartan, and folded more or less into part of their overall war effort. So, although comprised of Greeks, it seems a lot of the basic ground work for this force was managed by Lysander, whose personal friendship with Cyrus at the end of the Peloponnesian War famously ended the Persian policy of backing whichever side was weakest in that fight. It's possible that some people at the top of the Greek food chain knew exactly what Cyrus was up to before word filtered down to the likes of Xenophon. Tao Jones posted:Promising safety and then attacking was a taboo for the Greeks. The idea of guest-friendship is based on mitigating it. Guest-friendship was a sort-of ritual where someone in a desperate situation pledges to enter into a guest-friend relationship with someone else who can protect them and keep them safe until danger passes. This creates a tie between the descendants of the guest-friend and host. As an example of the power of guest-friendship, in the Iliad, the hero Diomedes is possessed by Athena and on a killing rampage, but when he encounters someone whose ancestor his own ancestor was guest-friends with, he snaps out of it. One of the things Zeus rules over is the guest-friendship relationship, and breaking it is the kind of thing that gets the Furies sent after you. So this book is, I think, meant to evoke a primal "THOSE PERSIAN FUCKERS!" emotional beat that isn't there so much for us. IIRC guest-friendship was also a general Med/Levantine thing as well. Maybe not to the same level, but it wasn't seen as lovely to just the Greeks. Xander77 posted:In the rest of his works Xenophon is really big on the importance of omens and sacrifices. It's kind of interesting just how conventional he is in his thinking, for a student of Socrates. I think it's very interesting, especially because Xenophon, when he gets back from this whole mess, takes it upon himself to write an alternate apology. Despite not actually having been in Athens at the time he felt so strongly that Plato must have gotten the story wrong that he puts together his own counter narrative. It raises some interesting points (was Plato embellishing Socrates to... give credence to his theories? Or did he put his own theories in the mouth of a man already executed for thoughtcrime to give himself a legal safety net? Perhaps Plato's Socrates was the 'real' Socrates and all the cool kids mocked poor Xenophon behind his back because he was too much of a jock to understand their metaphors and analogies.) Xander77 posted:"Xenophon's perspective on visionary / transformative leadership notes the importance of intrinsic motivation, but also emphasizes the value of external rewards". golden bubble posted:That's not surprising, coming from a mercenary captain. But, as the Sack of Antwerp attests, people still failed to pay their mercenaries for at least 2000 years after Xenophon. I think it's really interesting that Xenophon really doesn't see this as a mercenary perspective. He weaves it through all his political theory. Cyrus-of-the-Cyropedia does it for his loyal soldiers, rewarding generals with the best divisions, who are supposed to reward captains with the best subdivisions, who are supposed to reward NCO's who are supposed to reward etc. etc. In return the plebs are supposed to obey the aristocrats in every which way. Hell, in his Oeconomicus he goes on about how the ideal wife has the power to and responsibility of reward and recognition within the ideal household.* Xenophon seems to me to be one of nature's followers (be it to Socrates, Cyrus, Derkylidias,  ) and yet is constantly disappointed that neither those above nor below him perform as he expects.*This, and an incident in the Hellenika where the Ten Thousand come across a female satraap who would more or less Xenophon's dream employer is why I rank him as Greece's most surprising feminist thinker. quote:
100% yes. quote:Related to these: Is he going to be contrasting Cyrus as a "Persian" leader with "Greek" leadership? I don't think so. At the time, while there's still a divide between Greek/not-Greek, there are still huge conflicts within Greece about what leadership should be. Oligarchy/Monarchy vs. democracy was a running sub-theme of the Athenian vs. Sparta conflict. quote:Xenophon mentions that people took Cyrus's crossing of the river at Thapsacus as being an omen of his destiny to become king. But Cyrus fails; is this a criticism of omens? Prior to the battle scene at the climax, Cyrus tells Xenophon that omens and sacrifices were made and favorable, but those aren't mentioned in the text otherwise. In other works Xenophon goes on about the omens as being very important. I think he saw it less as a 'woo we're going to win' as 'woo, the gods have consented to let us prove ourselves.' In other words, acting under good omens meant a chance of success, acting under bad omens guaranteed failure.
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Feb 17, 2016 09:30
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